Shattered
by x.forbiddenlust
Summary: I’d gone from the sweet, caring, compassionate, outgoing, fun-loving, intelligent, tolerant girl to the dark, inconsiderate, cruel, sarcastic, cynical angst-ridden teenager that had been hiding inside me from day one." The story of one Lily Evans.


**Prologue  
**...

_When you got nothing  
So you say  
And you should never let the sun set on tomorrow  
Before the sun rises today  
_"If I Am" – Nine Days

...

I've always been different, and I've always known it. In my grammar school in Surrey, England, I was in the gifted class. My parents took great pride in my brilliance, and whenever there was a school outing, I would hear them boasting to other parents who had offered to chaperone that the cute, brilliant redhead girl was theirs. I loved the pride that I got from my parents. I loved the love that I was on the receiving end of, and I worshipped the attention and acknowledgment that I received, oblivious to the resentment towards me that was building up in my older sister. I thought my life was complete. At fourteen, how was I to know that my entire world was about to be ripped from my grasp and I was going to be thrown into the cold, unloving embrace of the real world?

Have you ever experienced that moment where your life changes in one split second? Sometimes the split second can result in a good change, other times it's a bad change. I had that experience in the August of 1975, just before I was going to enter my fifth year at Hogwarts Academy. For me, though, the sudden change was unpleasant, and the furthest thing from good that you could imagine.

My life had been the epitome of perfection. Really, and that's just not me being conceited. I'm not that kind of person. Calling my life perfect might sound a bit like a hyperbole, but there just isn't any other way to phrase it.

My parents were completely and utterly in love... so in love, that sometimes I felt queasy watching the exchanges between them. I was getting along with my parents, sister and friends. And I had a boyfriend. My first boyfriend in my fourteen years of life. I had friends who loved me for me, who never took advantage of my naivety, openness and the fact that I just couldn't say no. My grades in school were exceptional. Screw thought, my life was complete.

It was my ideal life. Perfect. Simply perfect the way everything was.

_This is it._ I would think to myself every morning that I woke up to the sunrise. _This is my life. And my life is perfect. Nothing could go wrong._

I was so wrong, that it hurts for me to think back to my 'perfect' life.

The silver balloon of love, hope, faith, protection, selflessness, happiness and completeness I had been living in for fourteen years popped. A dark cloud appeared, and, for the first time ever, it had no silver lining. My happy-go-lucky self was replaced with a dark, unhappy, distant character that felt better to wrap herself in complete lies and lonliness. My outlook on life became one of a pessimist, my personality bland, cold and distant. My wit was sarcastic, hurtful... and sharp. So sharp. I was cutting people left and right.

My parents, the most amazing, wonderful, accepting, brilliant, so-completely-in-love parents, had just been ripped from me by some selfish seventeen year old jackass who decided he hadn't had enough to drink at some party to make him too inebriated to drive home that night.

I was being torn from my home in Surrey, and forced into the cold, cruel arms of society and, even worse, being sent back to Hogwarts, away from my suffering, pained, teary-eyed sister.

That accident didn't just take my parents from me, it took the tolerance and acceptance of my sister. It took the perfect life I had created for myself. Worst of all, it took my innocence from me. I now knew what it felt like to lose someone important to you.

After the accident, I headed back to Hogwarts for my fifth year, a completely different person then I had been when I'd left merely two months prior.

I'd gone from the sweet, caring, compassionate, outgoing, fun-loving, intelligent, tolerant girl to the dark, inconsiderate, cruel, sarcastic, cynical angst-ridden teenager that had been hiding inside me from day one.

I dropped all my friends upon my arrival at Platform 9¾ . I hurt them in ways I never thought were possible, using just my words. I intentionally chased people, hoping they would understand the meaning, the purpose, the need and the constant vying for attention and help that I craved that year.

I drove people away with my bitter, sarcastic sense of play. It didn't hurt me to see the pain in their eyes, or the tears before they turned their heads away, denying me the satisfaction of the knowledge that I had just succeeded in breaking a part of their spirit. I kept telling myself that I was better off without them, and if they were so quick to cry or back down at my words, then clearly they were never strong enough for my friendship in the first place.

Then the addiction came along. When people stopped caring entirely, not even looking up when I'd try to pick a fight with them, I turned to self-infliction. I would spend hours a day, locked inside the bathroom in my dormitory, a silver razor in my hand, drawing designs on my right wrist. The sight of the crimson sent my senses into overdrive as it trickled down my porcelain skin and onto the white-tiled bathroom floor. I don't know what the expression on my face was in those moments of weakness, but I can only assume that there was a sick, manic, morbid smile upon my face, a twisted malice in my eyes as I took out my anger towards everyone else on my horribly scarred wrist.

I changed again. This time, I was a quiet wallflower, constantly trying to blend into the shadows on the stonewalls. Despite the numerous people that approached me, offering their condolences about my situation, I didn't change. I didn't open up to anyone. I would brush them off with a blank stare and then continue walking, ignoring the few who continued calling my name. My only escape was those precious moments I kept to myself, alone in the bathroom, the now dulling razor lodged firmly in the skin of my wrist, my silent pleas for help escaping the attention of those around me.

After the first month, I stopped communicating with other people all together. I stopped raising my hand in class; I stopped making eye contact with people. I completely pushed myself into social isolation, and I was happy like that. I spent more and more time writing in my journal; more and more time writing dark, depressing poetry about suicide and self-inflicted pain. I would lock myself up, completely ignoring the outside world and it's happenings, which is probably why I was unaware of the sudden danger and intensity that had settled swiftly over Hogwarts, so fast that nobody had time to react or run.

Lord Voldemort was on the rampage, killing everything and anything that dared try to stop his plan for dictatorship, his plan to rid the world of all muggles, muggleborns and half-bloods. Anyone that didn't have Pure Ancestry was in danger. And, surprise, surprise, the Slytherin's didn't seem indefinitely terrified of the idea that at any moment Voldemort could come crashing through the doors to the Great Hall and kill us all with some swift movement of his wand.

His sole purpose was to hurt others, his destination a modern hell, yet I stayed blissfully unaware of this overwhelming threat that began settling heavily on peoples shoulders as they prayed everyday that the Ministry owls containing death certificates of loved ones were not addressed to them. Taking a band of followers, anyone weak enough to accept the promises of power and ever-lasting loyalty, Voldemort began the killings. Children were killed, parents murdered in a fit of rage for protecting their spawns. The only safety zone was Hogwarts, and even that was being threatened regularly.

...

It was a few short hours before the train would be departing from the station, taking everyone back home to their families for the summer, that I realized it. With the way things were, in this day, with the threat of death and suffering hanging above our heads, it was unfair to block everyone out. In the end it would always come down to who were most loyal to the light, and, as conceited as it may sound, I was one of those people. Despite my eagerness to give out and do myself serious physical, emotional and psychological damage, if it came down to kill or be killed, I would be standing along side many others, fighting for the lives of our loved ones.

Of course, the bitterness came back around and I scowled. It wasn't like I had anyone to fight for but myself. My friends had left me when they realized my never-ending bitterness and sarcasm was permanent, and my parents were dead. Who the hell did I think I was fighting for?

As I pulled my trunk into an empty compartment and flopped on the seat, a tiny smile started on my face, the first true smile in almost a year. When I returned to Hogwarts for my sixth year, I was going to start over.

...

The formation of new relationships was all I needed to start over. I would have to give up my entire life and hand myself over to the mercy of other people who don't know me… but, to start over with a new life, it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

I am Lily Evans, unafraid and prepared to take on the world.

* * *

**Author's Note:  
**Like I mentioned in my one-shot Almost Perfect, I live off of reviews, so I would appreciate any feedback you have for me.


End file.
